


First Steps

by laureltreedaphne



Category: Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-05
Updated: 2014-11-05
Packaged: 2018-02-24 06:22:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2571335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laureltreedaphne/pseuds/laureltreedaphne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>First times are always the hardest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	First Steps

**Author's Note:**

> Migrating all my old work over from LiveJournal - this is from 2003
> 
> Written for dorrie6, for the Flash-fic-athon challenge. She wanted a fic containing a first of some kind, so I hope this is along the lines of what she meant.

Elijah's first day of school is terrifying. It's not actually at a real school, he has an on-set tutor, but it's terrifying all the same. She's a gray haired, no-nonsense type of woman, whose mouth seems to always be fixed in a dissatisfied frown. He watches his mom wave goodbye to him as she leaves the set to do errands, and he feels like crying as he turns to meet his new teacher. The first thing she says to him is, "I think it's disgraceful, that you're not in school like all the other children." Elijah doesn't tell her that he wishes he were. 

_Dom's first day of school is terrifying. He still doesn't speak German quite as well as he should, and when he does, the other children make fun of his accent. The teacher's nice enough about it - she doesn't make him feel stupid, at least. But when it becomes apparent that he's never heard the story of Mutter Courage, she can't quite hide the look of disbelief in her eyes. At lunch, everyone makes fun of what his mother's packed him, and Dom wishes desperately that he could be somewhere else._

Elijah's first day of shooting is nerve-racking. He's done movies before of course, but never like this. Never so far away from home, without his mom to support him. Never in a location like New Zealand, which is the most beautiful place he's ever seen but still leaves him feeling a little bit dazed. And never on such a huge scale - the sheer amount of people and equipment on the set is enough to give anyone performance anxiety. Elijah lights a cigarette and wonders for the first time if a child actor who's best known for his role in an alien movie is really cut out to be Frodo Baggins. 

_Dom's first day of shooting is nerve-racking. He's been on sets before, but they were nothing like this. This is completely beyond his scope of experience. People keep giving him "who the hell are you?" looks, despite the fact that he's dressed in a hobbit costume, and it's more than a little disconcerting. Didn't Peter tell any of these people that he's allowed to be on set? Elijah's over by a tree, smoking a cigarette and twitching, looking even more nervous than he is, which is oddly comforting. He walks over and tugs at one of the hobbit curls, says, "Don't you know smoking's bad for you?" Elijah grins, coughs exaggeratedly, and stubs the cigarette out, and all of a sudden Dom doesn't feel so out of place anymore._

Elijah's first movie premiere is exciting and overwhelming all at the same time. His mother has decided that, at the ripe old age of eleven, he is finally old enough to walk the red carpet, and so here he is, at the Radio Flyer premiere, trying to look everywhere at once. Lorainne Braco takes his hand, walks him through the press, while his mom follows carefully behind. The cameras are awful, but Lorainne always seems to know which direction to turn, always knows when to say something to make him laugh so that he's smiling in the pictures. When he gets tired of answering the questions, Lorainne always knows how to steer him away with a graceful excuse. He's grateful for her. At his next premiere, he's able to navigate the red carpet by himself. 

_Dom's first movie premiere is exciting and overwhelming all at the same time. He supposes that for a first experience, this isn't a bad one - the hype surrounding Lord of the Rings is huge, and it seems like everyone in the city has turned out to see them. It's amazing, he's bouncing off the walls in fact, but inside he feels a little bit jittery. The flashbulbs are blinding him, and his grin's starting to sag a little bit around the edges. Just as he's about to get annoyed at a reporter for asking him the same thing for the tenth time, he feels Elijah's hand slip around his. Elijah says something to the reporter that makes him laugh, and suddenly he's free, away from the press and the bright lights. "It can get a bit overwhelming, yeah?" says Elijah with a squeeze to his hand, and then he's out in the middle of the red carpet again, except this time he's with Lij and it's not so frightening anymore. He grins and plays along as Elijah waves at the cameras like the pro he is._

Elijah's first night in LA is disorienting. The city's bright and loud, and his new room feels sterile and strange, not comforting like his old room, with glow in the dark stars on the ceiling and pictures on the walls. He misses Iowa already. He knows that Hannah's already crawled into his mother's bed in the next room over, and he wishes that he could too, except he's supposed to be acting grown-up now, and grown-ups don't so that. Elijah tries not to think of another little boy sleeping in his room and staring up at the stars. Instead, he falls asleep clutching his pillow and listening to the sound of sirens. 

_Dom's first night in LA is disorienting. The city's amazing, with bright lights and blaring music and more interesting people than you could ever hope to see in a lifetime. But he's not quite used to hearing strange accents all around him, drinking tea instead of coffee, and driving on the right side of the road. He likes LA, but he misses England. Elijah's couch is damn uncomfortable, which doesn't make it any better, and the sirens screaming past the house every five minutes are keeping him awake. When he rolls over and tries to find a more comfortable position, he lands on the floor with an oomph, and hopes desperately that he hasn't woken Elijah up. But he has, and Elijah wanders in, bed-head and all, and laughs a little bit at the sight of Dom on the floor, blanket tangled around his legs. "You could share my bed," Elijah suggests with a shy smile. And as Dom follows him into the bedroom, he realizes that despite his disorientation, he already feels right at home._


End file.
